


Constellation Heart.

by Pigeonsy



Category: Pluto (Manga)
Genre: Gen, this series makes me cry, we needed Epsilon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 17:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11673858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeonsy/pseuds/Pigeonsy
Summary: Epsilon's study on himself, while searching for shapes in the clouds with one of the children. A study in sunlight, in warm hands and a smile he tries to make fatherly; a study in a robot trying to be the "father" he was made by.





	Constellation Heart.

**Author's Note:**

> There's so little work for this series up so I'm basically here to throw Epsilon at everyone. That's my job now. (Also hey did you know an epsilon is the fifth star in a constellation? Fun fact.)

(I'm sorry, so sorry, I'm sorry it's like this–)

The children count off the things they've seen in the sky: two bears, three dogs, an ice cream cone. Epsilon simply lays among them in the grass, their warm and fragile bodies a reminder that he is always above and below. Hadn't Serah asked him to look for what he saw? (Unfortunately nothing but clouds, yet he saw everything else internally.) Instead of seeing shapes, he simply saw a sky whose molecules he could almost taste – he saw the sky that felt the way humans described a home.

(– I'm sorry, so sorry; I'm sorry we do this.)

Strange, that such a _small_ thing as that would lead him to wish to review files on himself (Doctor Newton-Howard had once told him that self-reflection was important: it made people who they were, to question and doubt), to pore over recorded thoughts. Who, precisely, was he? In number – EPN 5705 0001. In name, Epsilon, often stubbornly Epsilon Newton-Howard: per request of creator (insist upon that, no matter what is handed to you for it, insist that you have family and are more than what you're made up of). What was he? In simple terms – one of the "World's Greatest Robots", deemed great by having a destructive power _he entirely refused to accept_ and by simple deed and association of who crafted him. In larger terms – he was guardian of children, aiming to be the " father" that he knew; he was a man openly insisting on being such, backed by the support of those who loved him and sniped at by callous human commentary (so easy for a robot to change their body, in those eyes, so easy to be hit by those jealous or as unaccepting as in the past – transphobia exists in all times, it seems).

A pause. He'd forgotten something that lay in a stray, scattered thought (something robots were believed not to have) – he was not just a guardian, but someone's _son_. He had a surname to prove such, a creator who insisted on being his father. He was more than one line of code in the program; he was someone whose ears stuck out a little too far, whose cheek faintly dimpled when he smiled – this he knew, as Doctor Newton-Howard's own features held this same fact. They had the same nose, the same forehead, the same quiet demeanor: Epsilon was his father's child and could remember it easily now.

There are other things he is, too. Pacifist and coward, a bitter survivor, someone who hides emotions and runs and runs. He is a creature built of metal and AI and fear – if robots can suffer anxiety, he knows it plagues him. He knows that people such as he can have PTSD: something his creator and father explained to him in explaining why the aftermath of a war he did not directly touch still crawled up from the darkest recesses to haunt him. But he is a runner: and so he keeps running.

A pause, pale strands becoming a mess once again at the touch of a breeze: he liked sunsets, and laying on his back, he believed he liked them even more. The clouds were vast as he stared up, saving more self-loathing for another day.

(I find war & I find peace; I find no heat, no love in me.)

He reflects upon emotions: he loves children, he loves them all – they are his, and they have taught him a lot. He learned sorrow from the death of a friend, followed by a father: he learned how grief can really feel so horrid as he was told – he had screamed, he had in fact destroyed many things, despite his pacifistic nature. He felt anger, anger to the point of wishing harm he would never inflict. He had felt sorrow and pain, yet he had never cried (he never gave himself time to learn that trick). 

(And I am low, and unwell; this is love, this is hell.)

Perhaps that was why he wouldn't be deemed a fit parent to children he loved: not human enough, but if he tried he'd be deemed false – a monster, a liar. There was no way to win and no way to love his children, yet he stubbornly kept trying as his father had for him. 

Those were unaccessed memories: the ones of the father, the creator, the man whose kind blue eyes reflected his own – the man who built a daughter, yet gladly accepted a son (the man who gave that son the body he asked for, the man who gladly supported his son through everything). He remembered warm hands, hands that were different than his: his father's hands were smaller, their fingers shorter – that was simply how they were. He remembered the smile that was often soft, slow to spread (it mirrored his own perfectly, and had made people ask many a question). He remembered being taught to do as he wished, be who he wanted – he was no one's weapon, if he did not want to be. He remembered someone he could never bring to see the children again. That part, it _hurt_.

(Fly high across the sky, from here to kingdom come – fall back down to where you're from.)

He knew what he saw in the clouds, in the sunset that crept in slowly. In the fading of the light he learned something new with what he saw: he learned to cry, reflecting on prayers to someone far above – watch over this man's soul, may he rest in peace; in the sunset, there was a final acceptance and a body shaking the way he'd seen children do, raw and unrestrained. It was something primal, something that should have been done alone but something done right there instead – something that was responded to with love. (He'd learned he was home, in that moment, with those kids all around him; Serah rubbing his back and Marie telling the others to go get someone, words of comfort and repetitions of "we love you, it's okay".) 

(Don't you fret, my dear – it'll all be over soon; I'll be waiting here, for you.)

**Author's Note:**

> Pluto makes me emotional, I'm gay for Epsilon, and I'm here to be president of the "Epsilon is trans" club. I'm also very supportive of Doctor Newton-Howard being dad™ and not just creator.


End file.
